League facing a hard sell to fans

Supporters sick of being seen as criminals

NOBODY enjoys airports anymore. From lengthy queues at the check-in desk to the full body frisk to find that rogue cufflink, flying has become an unpleasant experience. A dehumanising experience.

Security is the biggest bugbear. No one appreciates being treated like a criminal. The assumption that a couple with two young children laden down with buggies and backpacks might be terrorists is insulting and absurd.

But still we do it. Still we fly. Why? Because there is no alternative. Those who crave a golf break in Abu Dhabi or an all-inclusive week in Limassol have a straight choice. Go by air or don’t go at all.

But what if airport recognition technology is wheeled out elsewhere? To Scottish football for instance.

And the feeling of being dehumanised precedes a cold, dreich overpriced football match in a venue where customers are barred from drinking alcohol because, let’s face it, they can’t be trusted.

Would people be quite so tolerant of airport style security then? Unlikely.

Rigid security is worth it for a week on a sun lounger in Hua Hin. Or a fortnight at Disneyland. A freezing cold football match with a dismal atmosphere costing £42 — plus half-time pies — for a parent and child is a slightly different story.

Alloa chairman Mike Mulraney, an SPFL board member, has announced new proposals for facial recognition cameras to curtail anti- social and offensive behaviour at Scottish football. Based on airport facial scanning technology, the idea will need £2m-£4million of taxpayers’ cash from the Scottish Government.

As usual, with anything the SPFL or SFA announce, the reaction has been scathing. Knee-jerk even. People who revel in slating the governing bodies for sweeping sectarianism and flares under the carpet now savage them for coming up with an idea. For some, trashing the two governing bodies is almost a default position. Like shooting apples in a barrel.

Many have simply had enough of the SPFL and SFA, regarding them as incompetents, unfit for purpose. Ironically, many of the critics routinely get the two organisations mixed up on a daily basis. But no matter.

What actually matters is this: when supporters go to a Scottish football match now they feel as if they are treated like criminals.

An email from a Sportsmail reader this week eloquently summed up the situation. A Celtic fan in his 50s, he has stopped attending away games because he objects to being treated like a lout. He has never been in trouble. Never sings IRA songs. He doesn’t even park on a double yellow line for fear of the consequences.

When he goes shopping with his wife, security guards don’t give him a second glance. Yet when he goes to a Celtic away game he is ‘herded, videoed, photographed, searched and intimidated by the police. All since the introduction of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.’

Let’s be blunt. This grandstanding act of SNP f olly has been an abomination. It criminalises acts at matches which, in any other setting, would be lucky to attract a police caution. It has exacerbated the very behaviour it was designed to stop. Rebellion in the stands is now rife.

There is little or no self-policing going on because in the words of our reader: ‘I get no respect from the police and therefore f eel disinclined to give any back.’

Forgive supporters, then, who resent the idea of facial recognition cameras. People who believe they are merely another way for the authorities to spy on them and infringe on their ability to enjoy a game of football.

Mike Mulraney addressed these concerns in Sportsmail yesterday. Cameras, he claims, will actually decriminalise fans.

Pubs across the UK operate a Pubwatch scheme which maintains a database of troublemakers based on CCTV images and shared intelligence. When someone misbehaves they are not arrested. They are thrown out and Pubwatch keeps them out.

What the SPFL working group is proposing is really not so different.

But perception here is everything. The cameras may not be intended to criminalise supporters. But fans think they are.

Neither has the idea of seeking considerable funding from the Scottish Government at a time of scathing cuts to public services gone down well.

Mulraney says facial recognition is just a proposal. A consultation. And, privately, one large Scottish club has told the SPFL they think it’s a good idea.

But supporters? They think it’s a bad joke. And unless the SPFL have both the means and the will to go out and persuade them otherwise, that’s where it will end.